


Caitlin

by AwesomeEyeroll



Category: Outlander & Related Fandoms, Outlander (TV), Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Gen, death of a child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 13:39:39
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17448026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwesomeEyeroll/pseuds/AwesomeEyeroll
Summary: Jenny reflects on what has been lost.This was posted on Tumblr way back when I wrote it but never here. This is basically the only none J/C Outlander fic I've ever written





	Caitlin

Jenny wandered through the gardens like she had no on so many nights like this one. She pulled her shawl closer around her, clad as she was in only her shift. The nights were cold and the wind that blew across the mountains had a razor edge to it. Jenny fancied that she could smell the change in the weather, that the summer had a slightly sweet and cloying scent, the smell of apples in the orchard and the herbs of the kailyard whilst the winter smelt of something else, a sharper, harder smell, the smell of pines and woodsmoke.

Thirty four days. Thirty four days since her soul had been ripped asunder. Her Caitlin. Her perfect, perfect child. Her perfect child, who had lived no more than a single day. She had been angry at the first. The red coats have come the day before. They had taken what they wanted, terrified the bairns. That night her pains came and next morning she had brought her daughter into the world. Caitlin Maisri Fraser Murray. She had known that something was wrong. She had birthed five children before her, all of them hale and lusty. Caitlin had been small. Her cries when they came thin and reedy. Jenny had held her close all that day, knowing that something was wrong, understanding and yet denying, in a way that only a mother can, that this child would be an angel. That she would not stay long with her. The bairn wouldn’t nurse, she just lay limp and warm in Jenny’s arms. Her little body was so pale. Jenny had memorised every last part of her. Her tiny half formed toenails, her lack of eyebrows, the little glimmer of red that suggested MacKenzie colouring and made her think of both her older brothers, one lost to her in this life, the other as good as, living in the cave alone. She closed her eyes and felt the tears spill down her face. Her precious child gone, like so many others. The harshness of the world more than their little bodies, their delicate souls could bear. She remembered that last little shuddering breath. How long she had held her own, listening, feeling, hoping that another would come. But hope had abandoned her this time. The child was gone. She sent up a prayer to her parents, to Willie “Look after her, this child of my heart.”

She walked now, past the walled garden. The wind rose in the trees and she paused. The sound in the wind was that of a baby’s cry. Thin, high and unmistakable to all mothers. Her heart clenched. She knew that the sound was not real. That it was the echo of what had been, that it was the call of the ghost that she would never be free of. She knew that you never truly lost a child, that they stayed with you. She closed her eyes, rocking slightly as if rocking a babe in her arms. “Sleep now mo Cridhe” she murmured into the wind “Your ma is here”


End file.
